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Psychological Effects of Stereotaxic Operations for the Relief of Parkinsonian Symptoms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2018

John McFie*
Affiliation:
The National Hospital, Queen Square, London, W.C.I.

Extract

In view of their many inter-connections with the cortical grey matter, the effects of lesions in the basal cerebral nuclei are of the greatest theoretical interest. On account of the rarity of naturally occurring lesions confined to these nuclei, there have been few reports of psychological changes in patients with discrete subcortical lesions. Smyth and Stern (1938) described four cases of intrinsic tumour of the thalamus, all of whom gave evidence of organic dementia early in the course of the disease. Eaton et al. (1939) reported six cases of symmetrical cerebral calcification preponderating in the basal ganglia, with no radiographic evidence of cerebral atrophy, of which the clinical concomitants included mental retardation. Alford (1948) has gone so far as to insist that destruction of thalamic nuclei is alone responsible for intellectual impairment, and that “focal” defects associated with different cortical lesions are related either to sensory disturbances or to the psychiatric state of the patient.

Type
Original Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1960 

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